Chaos Magic

[Dancing David]

Well, the original intent of this thread was to have people experiment and try to find their own proof with "chaos magic".

Um, not really. 'proof', IE : evidence requires data, protocols and consistency.

There are many reasons deeply rooted in the way that the brain works that people will have really valid experiences that have little validity to external reality.

But confirmation bias is not proof, which is why most people out looking for that experience refuse to write down things in a systematic fashion.

If you accurately record your events, then you can begin to say if the 'spirit' experiences have validity. Otherwise you have not ruled out confirmation bias.

Now without being mentally ill you can have a wide variety of very intense and strange experiences, semi dreams states around the edges of sleep are very real, as is confabulation. The brain looks for and creates patterns as a part of SOP, there is no surprise that people will have perceptual events, it is what the brain is designed to do.

The issue is that most people don't write down all the stuff, so they only remember the positive hits, they forget the thousands of misses.

Hypnagogia^WP

 

[Dancing David]

You know I find it almost funny that certain someones are taking conclusions and opinions they've heard in lectures and read in books on absolute faith and presume that any and all first-hand experience that seems to go counter to that must be in error.

I believe that the deeper question still remains, how does one know that it is not just a normal event of human brains?

Not always error, often mistaken attribution and speculation. Without the elimination of multiple variables of causation the conclsuion of causation may not be drawn.

 

[D'rok]

So, according your line of 'reasoning', drugs (which I had not taken) caused me to have an auditory hallucination which had a sufficient level of intelligence to carry on a lucid conversation, inform me about things I had no prior knowledge of, and possessed enough force to physically manipulate my body...?

Never-minding whatever mangled logic possessed you think that solipsism has anything to do with with the monitor analogy I drew -- just where do you come off on lecturing me about how to apply my critical thinking??

You woos are touchy aren't you? The tone of my posts has been strictly neutral up until this point. Silly me.

I used drugs as an example, and as part of a list of other causes of such experiences. I even put an "or whatever" at the end of the list so that you would know that it was an open-ended list. But I guess I was just being a little too generous with my assessment of your reading ability.

You just don't get it, do you? You are the one rationalizing your experience to the point of absurdity. Or maybe "rationalizing" isn't the right world - let's invent a new one, irrationalizing. What's absurd is that you rank your subjective internal experience higher on the hierarchy of truth than everything humanity has struggled so far to learn about the nature of the universe. Just because you, individually, had a trip, we, collectively need to reevaluate our science-based understanding of reality. There is no possiibty that you are wrong; science must be wrong. You conclude that your personal insight is so profound that it singularly upends facts we know about the objectively existing universe.

Get over yourself.

 

[Craig4]

The underlying basis is that the nature of reality is or includes consciousness, not merely matter and energy and the 'illusion' of consciousness. Consciousness is primary and it transcends time and space, matter and energy, and it transcends individuality. All those emerge from consciousness. Its a transcendental or mental monism, as opposed to a physical or material monism.

How about you shift your paradigm and do something with this magic ability? I'm open to well controlled experiments that would support your claims.

 

[PixyMisa]

You know I find it almost funny that certain someones are taking conclusions and opinions they've heard in lectures and read in books on absolute faith and presume that any and all first-hand experience that seems to go counter to that must be in error.

No.

Did you ever have any science education, AkuManiMani? Do you remember what they had you do? The experiments?

Why do you think they had you repeat those experiments, AkuManiMani? Why not just read about them in a book? After all, millions of other students had done them before. It's not as if the results were likely to change.

Then they come on to a web forum to lecture and sermonize to other people about how to use critical thinking.

No, you come on to a web forum and decide that you want to overturn the entirety of scientific knowledge because you don't like the explanation for an experience you probably don't recall accurately anyway, apparently because that explanation means that that experience is no more special than a hiccup.

Its like being in church with the fundies I grew up with all over again -- except this time the fanatics have made a religion out of their conception of what constitutes science.

This, of course, bears no relation to anything anyone has said at any point. We are suggesting you try to learn, to form a valid hypothesis and to test it. You seem to think this is arrogant. No, AkuManiMani, it is you that is arrogant here.

Its absolutely sickening.

No. It's fascinating and beautiful. It's science. It's reality.

 

[Orbini]

How about you shift your paradigm and do something with this magic ability? I'm open to well controlled experiments that would support your claims.

I believe Randi is still offering $1 million for stuff like this. Easy money.

 

[sadhatter]

No, I simply trust my own experience and good sense over the opinions and presumptions of others. Are you seriously suggesting to me that I should defer my responsibly to exercise my own judgement to the presumed authority of others? That I'm being 'egotistical' for not trying to rationalize away my own senses and experiences because they don't conform to a consensus of opinion? Are you %^*@ing serious?

Yes. When you feel a pain in your stomach and vomit blood, do you trust your own experience or go to a doctor? Mental sickness is no different, in fact it is worse because it is effecting your own senses. One does not have to be a raging lunatic in order to experience visual or auditory hallucinations.

 

[Hellbound]

Yes. When you feel a pain in your stomach and vomit blood, do you trust your own experience or go to a doctor? Mental sickness is no different, in fact it is worse because it is effecting your own senses. One does not have to be a raging lunatic in order to experience visual or auditory hallucinations.

Just to add to this, personal experience is why many people used to think drinking alcohol helps protect you from the cold. After all, it makes you feel better, your fingers and toes warm up, so it must be helping, right? Yet at the same time it causes your internal, core temperature, the one that, you know, keeps you alive, to drop rapidly. Alcohol makes you much more suceptible to cold injuries.

Yet your personal, usbjective experience (for any normally functioning human) would indicate the opposite.

 

[sadhatter]

Just to add to this, personal experience is why many people used to think drinking alcohol helps protect you from the cold. After all, it makes you feel better, your fingers and toes warm up, so it must be helping, right? Yet at the same time it causes your internal, core temperature, the one that, you know, keeps you alive, to drop rapidly. Alcohol makes you much more suceptible to cold injuries.

Yet your personal, usbjective experience (for any normally functioning human) would indicate the opposite.

I could have made a mile long list of examples, but the point is pretty clear. When out of our realm of knowledge we have to refer to the experts. And unless Aku has a psychology or biology degree, it is out of his or her realm of expertise.

 

[PixyMisa]

Just to add to this, personal experience is why many people used to think drinking alcohol helps protect you from the cold. After all, it makes you feel better, your fingers and toes warm up, so it must be helping, right? Yet at the same time it causes your internal, core temperature, the one that, you know, keeps you alive, to drop rapidly. Alcohol makes you much more suceptible to cold injuries.

Yet your personal, usbjective experience (for any normally functioning human) would indicate the opposite.

Clear evidence that your brain hates you and is trying to kill you.

 

[Seismosaurus]

It might take a while to get the hang acheiving gnosis but eventually the unconscious mind of the skeptic, in accordance with the intent of the sigil, would begin to provide the conscious mind with psychic experiences. Then what our intrepid skeptic has done in essence is cast a spell. Paradigm manipulation, sigils, and gnosis. Oh my!

And when a person does all this, and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens... what should he or she do then?

 

[Limbo]

And when a person does all this, and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens... what should he or she do then?

I don't know anyone who did it right and then nothing happened. But I do know people who unconsciously sabotaged the test because they didn't really want to see anything out of the ordinary. Deep down, they didn't expect anything, and they just wanted to validate their world-view. So nothing is what they got.

So maybe what your hypothetical person should do, is use introspection to determine if he or she really switched paradigms or not; if they were really mentally and emotionally prepared for something out of the ordinary to happen. Thoughts count, thats why the paradigm shift has to be real, and the altered state of consciousness (gnosis) has to be real too.

 

[tsig]

I don't know anyone who did it right and then nothing happened. But I do know people who unconsciously sabotaged the test because they didn't really want to see anything out of the ordinary. Deep down, they didn't expect anything, and they just wanted to validate their world-view. So nothing is what they got.

So maybe what your person should do, is use introspection to determine if he or she really switched paradigms or not.

So once you have the Faith you will see the Truth?

 

[sadhatter]

I don't know anyone who did it right and then nothing happened. But I do know people who unconsciously sabotaged the test because they didn't really want to see anything out of the ordinary. Deep down, they didn't expect anything, and they just wanted to validate their world-view. So nothing is what they got.

So maybe what your person should do, is use introspection to determine if he or she really switched paradigms or not.

So if the person says ( not proves, just says, that is limbo's standard of proof for this flavor of woo. ) they experienced effects, you win. If the person doesn't, they wern't trying hard enough, and you still win.

You realize that without falsifiability your theory on chaos magic means nothing right?

I might as well say i am controlling what you are doing right now. If you never post again, it is because i am blocking you from doing it with my Illithid powers. If you do, it is because i am using those powers to make you post.

Everything is magic if you stack the odds tango.

 

[Sledge]

Limbo can read minds. I did not know that.

 

[Seismosaurus]

maybe what your hypothetical person should do, is use introspection to determine if he or she really switched paradigms or not; if they were really mentally and emotionally prepared for something out of the ordinary to happen.

And if he does that, and nothing happens, then what?

 

[Zanders]

I believe Randi is still offering $1 million for stuff like this. Easy money.

And if you think he's a fraud, there are many other groups doing similar things. I'm sure somebody out there actually wants to see proof.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I dooooo believe in fairies!

I DO believe in fairies!! ! ! ! !

 

[Zanders]

AkuManiMani said that whatever it was didn't want to be mentioned to anyone else, so is there a chance that whatever it is wants to stay hidden? How would you go about testing something like that?

 

[PixyMisa]

Same as for anything else. Form a hypothesis, run an experiment.